And when digging around, I couldn’t find the data I wanted, but I did find a notebook.
And I started cleaning out things as I was going through them I found this notebook. It was rather interesting because this notebook was a sitting down and a writing out of a set of theories and thought processes I had to change Lifestyles.
And I have to take you way back. When I first decided to do Lifestyles Unlimited, myself and Steve Davis sat down and we wrote out exactly what we wanted Lifestyles to be, something completely different that had never been around before.
And to this date don’t believe there is another one like it anywhere in the country if not the world.
There’s a thing called the investment trap. The investment trap is the theory that I’ve got to stay in what I’m in until it comes back to where it was otherwise I lose money. If I don’t get out, I haven’t lost any money. Now, I know a lot of you believe that.
In fact, I fell for that investment trap on the very first piece of real estate I ever purchased. I purchased a brand new condo from a salesman, a seller. Don’t ever buy anything from a new homebuilder ‘cause you’re going to get ripped off. Because why?
Because they’re selling the property for what they say it’s worth, not what it’s really worth. So whenever you buy a new home, it’s like driving a car off the new car lot. It goes down in value. Not until it’s sold on the open market do you really know what the property’s really worth.
I stayed in the Four Seasons if you ever listen to Kid Rock he talks about "set up shop -at the top -of Four Seasons." The four or five top floors of the Mandalay Bay Hotel are the Four Seasons.
It’s like take the Mandalay Bay and ingest it with what you might call quality steroids and it’s over the top. It’s just totally over the top to stay at the Four Seasons. Everything they do for you, the rooms, everything’s unbelievable.
Everywhere you go, down there by the pool where they bring you cucumbers for your eyes and mist you with sprays, Evian sprays, and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Wait on you hand and foot. It’s just incredible.
Why do I bring this up? Because what I am trying to share with you today and I just can’t get it out fast enough, is how incredible the world really is.
“…if you ever read Stephen Covey, Covey talks about how unless you have the right road map then persistence, diligence doesn’t mean anything. Hard work is absolutely useless when you are working towards absolutely nothing. Yet if you have a major, major, goal with the right map then persistence and diligence makes a big difference.
So I persisted and I was diligent and I went to the meeting. Afterwards I became ill again, and I went home and went to bed. During the night I woke up every four hours and took the medication that I was supposed to be taking—both the pain and stuff to kill the fever and also the antibiotics. I woke up this morning the swelling had gone down massively, the pain had gone away, the fever was nonexistent, and I just couldn’t believe it. It was like it was a miracle. Yet the truth of the matter was it wasn’t a miracle, it was just doing the right thing and being persistent at what you do.”
Are you going to wait till you’re 60 or 70 years old?
I mean, really I wish that they would let us be retired when we’re young and then work when we’re old because when we’re old there’s not much we can do except sit here and play on the computer or do something like that.
I tell you what, I can’t even imagine the person that’s 50, 60, 70 years of age and they still have to get up and go to a job.
I don’t know how you can do it. I mean, today I got up this morning, and I got in the jacuzzi.
So folks, what do I see in this that is so interesting to me?
One, that the corporate abuse is rampant, it’s everywhere.
Two, here’s a person that enjoys his job, worked hard, took pride in his job, but when it came down to making the cuts in corporate America, many, many times it comes down to the sycophant society.
He who is willing to suck up to the boss the hardest is going to be the person that’s going to fit in and stay. But whatever the reason is—good or bad or ugly—the fact is there’s no job security in corporate America.
Well, what a lovely day to have to come in here and do a radio show. It’s amazing out there.
I was just driving around out there, going around looking at the world and thinking to myself…
…boy, what would it be like if I were trapped in an office all day long the rest of the day, all day long the rest of my life?
Trapped at Work
At one point in my life I was at that place. I was working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. I worked in the health club industry. It was an interesting little deal. How they had it set up is that you came into work and you worked from 9:00 in the morning till 9:00 at night and then did your paperwork and closed your club down from 9:00 till 10:00.
Well, my friends, have you ever just wondered—well, maybe wished that you could wake up one day and find yourself in the absolute perfect situation? Have you ever wondered if that could ever happen to you in your life? You know, I listen to these prognosticators and these radio guys and TV guys, they’re talking about, you know, what’s going to happen over six months—the next six to twelve months and where is the world economy going, the recession going and this going and that going. I’m addicted to this stuff just like you guys are probably to talk radio.
‘Cause you just — either you are listening to them because you’re scared to death and you’re worried about it or listening to it because it’s just so much nonsense that you just can’t even believe that these people are worrying about this minutia and crap of day-to-day over and over re-analyzation of the same old problems when the truth of the matter is we are right now in the middle of the greatest buying opportunity that there has ever been in my lifetime.
The point I am making to you is this: the quality of your life, the real quality time of your life is early on. And to save and to save and to save to try to retire when you’re old is in my mind a backwards point of view. I’d rather have been completely retired with very little income when I was young and now as I am older have more income but really not as much availability to activities because I’m old.
I would rather it been that way because by retiring young I didn’t have that much money. I think the first year that I retired I only made $40,000 in my real estate investing. Then it went up from 40 to 60 to 80 to 100 to 200 to 500 to a million, et cetera. But the point is is that when I started, I didn’t have that much money. I would rather see you retire and continue to build your wealth for the rest of your life and live a wonderful life when you’re young.
I’ve got two e-mails in here today both of which are on the exact same topic. Well, one is an e-mail that came from one of the members here talking about an article in it looks like MSN Money. It says America’s Looming Retirement Crisis and then it comes over here and the other article is Are the State Governments Running a Ponzi Scheme.
Basically, what they’re both talking about is the fact that even before Americans like yourself lost a quarter of their net worth in the last year and a half, even before this disaster that occurred here in the stock market, derivatives market, and so forth, and the housing market, even before 40 percent of your wealth was destroyed through all of this recession, depression-type stuff, there still wasn’t enough money in retirement accounts for people to retire.
(today)
Ask Del Now!
There’s a thing called the investment trap. The investment trap is the theory that I’ve got to stay in what I’m in until it comes back to where it was otherwise I lose money. If I don’t get out, I haven’t lost any money. Now, I know a lot of you believe that. 
“…if you ever read Stephen Covey, Covey talks about how unless you have the right road map then persistence, diligence doesn’t mean anything. Hard work is absolutely useless when you are working towards absolutely nothing. Yet if you have a major, major, goal with the right map then persistence and diligence makes a big difference. 
Are you going to wait till you’re 60 or 70 years old? 
This is Del’s response to a comment left on his show titled:
